Tutorial: A Dead Issue?

From the results of the Crimson's departmental poll released today one significant conclusion may be drawn; only a few scattered fragments remain of the universal tutorial system, once one of Harvard's unique possessions. Almost to a man, the many departments of the University have fallen back upon ersatz products of one type or another--some have provided adequate substitute systems, some have consolidated their non-tutorial teaching methods and even the advocates of the old full tutorial seem to question the value of opening it indiscriminately to everyone.

A hasty diagnosis might place the blame upon a growing lack of interest in the individual student by the various departments, but quite obviously the cause must lie far deeper. Very concrete factors, chiefly the shortages of both funds and qualified personnel, must take a sizable share of the responsibility. But neither of these is an insurmountable obstacle--the financial problem must necessarily remain as a difficulty ever-present, and can hardly be offered as an impassable barrier against any future progress; the question of personnel deficiency is essentially a short run matter. Both of these should be causes of temporary reduction, not permanent de-emphasis of tutorial.

Perhaps a more potent reason arises from indifference on the part of students--indifference both in tutorial participation, and towards any concerted effort to halt the trend away from the old conference system. Yet old, reliable "student apathy" should hardly be saddled with total responsibility for the scrapping of the full tutorial program. One excuse for this very indifference may be the poor quality of individual instruction that some departments have offered heretofore; another may be pure ignorance of tutorial and its benefits, as a result of lost opportunities to experience such teaching.

The alternative advisory systems, though substitutes of a sort, hardly can replace the interplay between student and faculty which tutorial's old Oxford-Cambridge-type individual instruction could extend. At present the only departmental criterion of a student's aptitude and interest in tutorial seems to be that of grades--usually by means of a line drawn at the bottom of Group III. But letter grades and receptivity do not always walk hand in hand. The invaluable aid which face-to-face instruction can provide, especially in the social studies, should warrant placing tutorial on a voluntary rather than an academic basis, opening it to all save that fraction whose indifference is congenital.